The DNC is launching its first young voter-targeted ad campaign of 2024 as the first nominating contest of the MAGA GOP’s race to the far right kicks off in Iowa. The ads are running on campus kiosks at the University of Iowa and Iowa State University, reminding young voters of the stark contrast between 2024 Republicans’ dangerous MAGA agenda and President Biden’s plan to combat climate change head on and spur the creation of good green jobs in states such as Iowa. 

DNC National Press Secretary Sarafina Chitika released the following statement:

“The DNC is meeting young voters where they are to lay out what’s at stake this November: President Biden’s plan to invest in the industries of the future while tackling climate change head on, versus MAGA Republicans’ agenda that puts Big Oil over the safety and prosperity of our communities. Ahead of the first nominating contest for the most extreme Republican presidential field America has ever seen, where denying the threat of climate change has been the party line for the GOP, this campus campaign kicks off the DNC’s early work to emphasize how the MAGA agenda would be a disaster for generations to come.” 

WATCH

Donald Trump has called climate change a “hoax,” and while in office repeatedly tried to slash the EPA’s budget while working to gut environmental protections and regulations. 

CNN: “The Trump administration announced Monday that it will begin formally withdrawing the US from the Paris climate accord, the first step in a year-long process to leave the landmark agreement to reduce emissions of planet-warming gases.”

New York Times: “Over four years, the Trump administration dismantled major climate policies and rolled back many more rules governing clean air, water, wildlife and toxic chemicals. In all, a New York Times analysis, based on research from Harvard Law School, Columbia Law School and other sources, counts nearly 100 environmental rules officially reversed, revoked or otherwise rolled back under Mr. Trump.”

Bloomberg: “The [Trump] administration’s fiscal year 2020 budget proposal would cut a fifth of the funding for the Environmental Protection Agency’s forensics efforts, which support its civil and criminal enforcement investigations.”

Politico: “Trump is once again seeking deep and unrealistic cuts to most federal agency budgets … The EPA’s budget would see a nearly 27 percent chop.”

Washington Post: “Trump reiterated some of his frequently repeated falsehoods

and petty grievances. ‘The global warming hoax, it just never ends,’ he said. He mocked the concept of sea levels rising, disputing widely held science. ‘To which I say, great, we have more waterfront property,’ he said. ‘There was a big thing about global cooling — what will be next?’ he said. Trump said he was

more concerned about ‘nuclear warming’ than global warming.”

Nikki Haley played a key role in withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement, one of the most significant steps the Trump administration took to turn back our progress in the fight against climate change. 

The Hill: “As U.N. ambassador during the Trump administration, Haley played a key role in the former president’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, which she touts on her campaign website.”

As billions of people face the very real consequences of the climate crisis, Ron DeSantis refuses to fully acknowledge it even exists.

South Florida Sun Sentinel: “Pressed by reporters after his airboat ride, DeSantis declined to definitively state if climate change is real and, if so, whether human activity is contributing to it. ‘The sea rise may be because of human activity and changing climate. It may be. It may not. I don’t know. … I’m not in the pews of the global warming left.’”

The Guardian: “Ron DeSantis has been accused of a ‘catastrophic’ approach to the climate crisis after he launched his campaign for US president by saying he rejects the ‘politicization of the weather’ and questioning whether hurricanes hitting his home state of Florida have been worsened by climate change.”

Haley and DeSantis are hellbent on repealing essential progress made through President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, landmark legislation that includes the United States’ biggest climate investment ever, kickstarting a manufacturing and jobs boom. 

Fox News: “GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley plans on cutting down President Biden’s ‘disastrous’ energy policies as well as bringing oil production back to the United States, if she is elected to the Oval Office in 2024. Haley, who previously served as the governor of South Carolina, shared her energy plan with Fox News Digital ahead of her formal announcement in Texas on Thursday. … The GOP candidate also slammed Biden’s green energy policies, saying she would ‘roll back Biden’s wasteful green energy subsidies and regulations.’ Haley specified that a number of subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act could cost as much as $1.2 trillion along with a number of ‘Biden administration rules and regulations that would hamstring our oil and gas industries,’ citing Biden’s power plant regulations and his crackdown on gas-powered cars.”

DeSantis: “You know, the good thing is I think there’s a pretty clear path to being able to reverse a lot of this stuff. The things he’s doing through executive order, you could reverse right away. But even what they did with the Inflation Reduction Act, they passed that via budget reconciliation in the Senate. So with 50 votes, I think, you know, we win the presidency, I’m pretty sure we would win the Senate and keep the House. And so at that case, what they put in by reconciliation, you could repeal by reconciliation.”

Meanwhile, President Biden’s historic Inflation Reduction Act is fighting the climate crisis head-on and has helped lead to the creation of over 100,000 green jobs already. 

Bloomberg: “Between last August, when President Joe Biden’s landmark climate bill became law, and the end of January, companies have announced more than 100,000 clean energy jobs in the US, according to an analysis released Monday by the nonprofit advocacy group Climate Power.”

CNBC: “The bill, which President Joe Biden signed into law in August, is the most aggressive climate investment ever taken by Congress and is expected to slash the country’s planet-warming carbon emissions by about 40% this decade and move the country toward a net-zero economy by 2050.”